Michael Doolan
Michael Doolan lives in Melbourne and works in Sydney where he is a Senior Lecturer at Sydney College of the Arts at the University of Sydney. In 1981, Doolan completed a Bachelor of Arts, a Master of Arts in 2001 and in 2013, graduated with a PhD from the Faculty of Art Design & Architecture, Monash University, Melbourne. His work is concerned with the legacy of the fairy tale, and seeks new ways of reading and decoding these narratives which have evolved in parallel to their broader cultural contexts. Doolan’s ceramic sculptures have the iconic images of Disney as their starting point. Familiar images such as dwarves, deer, owls, apples and goblets are arranged into uncanny vignettes with sleek, monochromatic surfaces. The resulting scenes are simultaneously cute and ominous.
Michael has held various solo exhibitions throughout Australia, most notably Stories with Endings Changed: Jan Manton Art, Brisbane, 2018; Michael Doolan, New and Recent Work, Michael Reid, Sydney + Berlin, 2017; World without World: Castlemaine Art Museum, Victoria, 2017 and in 2015 World within World: Karen Woodbury Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria. He has also participated in numerous curated group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park Small Sculpture Award, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, Victoria 2020; the prestigious by invitation only Korea International Ceramics Biennale, Korea, 2019; SPEED: mobility and exchange, Mona Foma, Academy Gallery, University of Tasmania, Tasmania, 2018 and Imagined Worlds, City of Glen Eira Art Gallery, Victoria in 2017.
